Similar stanzas, however, in which the frons precedes the versus, according to the formula a a b c b c (cf. [p. 285]), do not occur frequently; a rare form, also, is that in which the cauda is placed between the two pedes (cf. [p. 285] and Metrik, ii, §362)
§ 268. Still more popular than the six-lined stanzas, both in the Middle and in the Modern English periods, are those of seven lines, which are modelled on Old French lyric poetry, the prevailing type being that of an Old French ballade-stanza, viz. a b a b b c c. But it is not before the middle of the fifteenth century that we meet with an example of this stanza consisting of four-foot verses, viz. in Lydgate’s Minor Poems (Percy Society, 1840), p. 129; a specimen of four-stressed verses occurs in the Chester Plays, pp. 1–7 and pp. 156–8. We may, however, take it for granted that this form of stanza was known long before that time, since four-foot verses were used much earlier than those of five feet, and a six-lined stanza of five-foot verses occurs (for the first time, so far as we know) as early as in Chaucer’s Compleynte of the Dethe of Pite, and subsequently in many other of his poems (e.g. Troylus and Cryseyde, The Assembly of Fowles, The Clerkes Tale) and in numerous other poems of his successors, e.g. in The Kingis Quair by King James I of Scotland. It has been sometimes maintained that this stanza was called rhyme royal stanza because that royal poet wrote his well-known poem in it; this, however, is not so. Guest long ago pointed out (ii. 359) that this name is to be derived from the French term chant-royal, applied to certain poems of similar stanzas which were composed in praise of God or the Virgin, and used to be recited in the poetical contests at Rouen on the occasion of the election of a ‘king’. Chaucer’s verses to Adam Scrivener are of this form and may be quoted as a specimen here (after Skeat’s text, p. 118):
Adam scriveyn, if euer it thee bifalle
Boece or Troylus to writen newe,
Under thy lokkes thou most haue the scalle,
But after my making thou write trewe.
So oft a day I mot thy werk renewe
Hit to corrects and eek to rubbe and scrape,
And al is through thy negligence and rape.
In Modern English this beautiful stanza was very popular up to the end of the sixteenth century; Shakespeare, e.g., wrote his Lucrece in it; afterwards, however, it unfortunately fell almost entirely out of use (cf. Metrik, ii, § 364).